What’s better than reality TV?

A lot of things, but tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m., one very important one will be gliding over heart strings and plucking at souls in Berkeley’s very own Hertz Hall. That’s right, the University Symphony Orchestra will be performing and, from the looks of this weekend’s program, they’ll also be completely ignoring Halloween.

No “Night on Bald Mountain,” for these presumably un-costumed folks, led by conductor David Milnes, who probably won’t be wearing a costume either. But maybe they’ve got a few tricks up their sleeves for Saturday. We don’t know. Maybe Milnes will dress up as a “conductor” and wear like a train driver costume or something. Get it? Like another kind of conductor. Because he’s the conductor. That’d be clever. Right?

Anyway, I digress. The orchestra will play Rachmaninoff’s “Symphony No. 2,” Ernest Bloch’s “Suite Hebraique,” and Bloch’s “Concerto Grosso for strings and piano.” It’s only $5 for students, and even if classical music isn’t really your bag, man, it’s still sometimes fun to go relax and hear something you might not ever hear otherwise.

Rachmaninov - André Previn - Symphony No.2 Mvt.4 (3/3) [YouTube]
University Symphony Orchestra [Dept. of Music Calendar]

I agonized over a pun headline for this post–”Let’s Twit It On,” “You Only Twit Once,” “Tweet Home Alabama,” “Twit Up, Twit On Up” . . . you get the picture. The point is, the Daily Californian Arts Department has its very own twitter!!!!

Follow us, and you’ll find: (Click here to read more…)

On Monday night at Bottom of the Hill, indie-dream pop duo—along with a plus one on drums—Beach House played a sold out show. The opening group, Papercuts, is a band my friend deemed “the kind you’d want to do your homework to.” I can’t say I disagree but I enjoyed them nonetheless. Beach House followed—and delighted. (Click here to read more…)

Hey gang,

Assuming you all read last week’s column, the cat’s out of the bag. My geekiness runs deep. I’ve only scratched the surface.

Before we get there, I want to share a few more things about the role-playing system, “Spirit of the Century” that I referenced.

Here is the official site. And here is a blog, written by one of our players, in character, where he retells the events of our games. It’s really amazing, actually. I’ve commented in character as well.

If you’re curious about how deep exactly my geek runs, perhaps this will illuminate the matter.

-Daniel out

I just joined the Daily Cal this semester, so not expecting to get a sweet complimentary press ticket, I bought my tickets to the Treasure Island Festival like a normal person in August. I didn’t get a fancy shmancy press pass with all the luxuries. No internet access, no free water, no private bathrooms, no smug sense of superiority. I was roughing it. But I got to capture a perspective from the front lines: I wiggled my way through the crowd to get closer to the stage, I was part of the conga line at the end of Dan Deacon’s set, I wandered through the art booths and midway games, and I danced my face off pretty much all day. So here’s a wrap up of the true festival-goer experience:

For one, getting to the festival is a little bit of a task if you don’t have a car and a VIP parking pass. I left my house around 1040am to take Bart to the city and walk to AT&T Park, and by the time we got off the complimentary shuttle to the island, it was 1:15.

Still, it’s hard to even let bumps like this affect your mood at a place like the Treasure Island Festival. How often do you get to spend a day listening to fantastic live music surrounded by a conglomeration of artists, students, hippies, ravers, weirdos, and normal people who all share a love of music? It’s a pretty fascinating sociological phenomenon, and always a spectacle. Today’s weirdness included old-timey midway games, a few guys riding around in motorized cupcakes (literally, cupcake cars where you could only see the driver’s head poking out of the top), and about a dozen people dressed up in rubber robot and monster costumes who would run around and dance with people. The last one was probably pretty terrifying for the few handfuls of people tripping on acid.

These weird elements are typical of any major music festival these days, but Treasure Island is particularly unique for a few reasons. For one, Treasure Island sells out at 12,000 tickets, which is dwarfed by the 40-60,000 people the larger festivals like Coachella and Outside Lands attracts. It’s so small that you can hear the music playing from almost anywhere on the island. The art booths seem to spill towards the music into distances you would normally stand from the stage at Coachella. But it’s still large enough to provide a similar experience to these festivals, but small enough to feel significantly more intimate. Also, there are only two stages, and the schedule is designed so that when one band finishes on one stage, the next band starts on the other. This eliminates one of the worst things about music festivals: having to choose between two of your favorite acts playing simultaneously on different stages.

And thank God for that. With a lineup like Saturday’s, you don’t want to miss a thing.

(Click here to read more…)

Hey team,

If you read my column last Thursday (and I certainly hope you did), you’ll no doubt be starving for some program code to look at. I am more than happy to deliver.

First of all: Treemap

(define (treemap fn tree)
____(make-tree (fn (datum tree))
____________(map (lambda (t) (treemap fn t))
________________(children tree) )))

The underscores preserve the formatting.

Just stare at it until it starts to make sense. Here’s an example of a “Tree:”

(earth
(usa (ca (la) (berkeley) (sf)) (ny (albany) (nyc)) (fl (miami) (orlando)))
(france (paris) (lyon))
(uk (england (london)) (scotland (edinburgh) glasgow)) (ireland (dublin) (belfast (shankill) (the falls)))))

It’s all just words inside of matched parenthesis. The parenthesis are super important. The datum of the second line, for example, is “usa” and the children are “ca” “ny” and “fl”

If your interest is piqued, there’s more than you could ever want to know at the CS61A site. An friendlier place would be here.

Next week will be the nerdiest week yet, so stay tuned!

Hey team.

Last week I talked at some length about the Kanye West/Taylor Swift controversy at the MTV VMAs a few weeks back, and then used it as a launchpad for a more general discussion of internet memes.

I referenced quite a few online videos in the article. In the past, you would’ve been left at that. But in this day and age, I can show you them.

Here we go: (Click here to read more…)

Hey!

This past week’s column was the second half of my Digital Photography series, where I talked about how many people have begun converting their cameras into scientific measuring instruments, carefully gathering data on their personal lives and presenting their “findings” to their social communities.

This week’s EE will be extremely short. Odds are, you already have the page I’m about to link to open. If not…

here it is.

Poke around some more and keep what I said in mind. I had a girl Facebook chat me a few days ago, telling me she disagreed with some of the claims I made in my column.

Her argument: Some people use Facebook only as a communications tool; they don’t cultivate any sort of image.
My response: Have you ever untagged a photo someone else tagged because you didn’t like it? If you ever have, then you’re nurturing an image, regardless of degree.

Lay the debate on me.
-Daniel

P.S.: For those of you wondering about that photo…

Image source: Hannah Jewell

If you’re like me, attempts to study after school every evening don’t go very well. You get home, someone’s making food, there’s a new fall show premiering on TV, your roommate has some crazy story to tell and all of the sudden it’s 10 o’clock and your ability to absorb textual information has dwindled considerably.

In the name of creative procrastination, I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground for late night activities in the East Bay, and quel surprise! I found cult movies. Galore.

You may have heard about SF’s Clay Theatre and their (Click here to read more…)

Last week I talked about some of my experiences with digital photography, and how I feel the “art” has transformed somewhat in the space between theory and practice. I’ll elaborate more on it next week, but for now let me treat you to what I feel is the traditional use of the term.

Wikipedia’s “Featured Pictures”

Flickr “Hive Mind” (explore this!)

A Demain,
-Daniel